ness or mercy; and if this Mrs. Herbstrewer will refer to Thurtell's case, she will find that though the murderers ate pork chops, it was AFTER the fact.

The lady is a pious lady, and appeals often to her Bible, but professedly disbelieves that "real animals were let down in a sheet out of heaven" to the hungry apostle.

Her version evidently is,—" Arise, Peter! kill that cucumber, slay that lettuce, and stick that turnip!" Such a diet, she declares, would "entirely abolish the greatest of all curses-war ;" and yet of all the apostles St. Peter was the only one recorded to have used his sword! To come nearer home, Earl Grey pursues a peaceful policy; but does it follow that his lordship breakfasts on leeks, or dines on cabbage, and sups on radishes. To be sure, rations of marigolds and marjoram might take some of the fight out of the Lifeguards and Dragoons; but we fear not even the lady herself could preach the Coldstream into living on water

cresses.

Holding these opinions, we shall not trouble our readers with the prescriptions for making vegetable messes, but must extract part of a recipe for an omelet, which includes a whole direction for making a frying-pan :-" Omelets should be fried in a small frying-pan made for that purpose with a small quantity of butter." (p. 4.)

There is in the introduction a second discourse, on spirituous liquors, in which the vegetables of course get well watered; but the essay is only remarkable for a shrewd suspicion by Doctor Carlyle, that "no man would give a lamb, a calf, a chicken, or a duck, spirituous liquors, with a hope of rendering it sooner fat, even if such liquors were so cheap as to make it an economical process; yet many parents do this by their CHILDREN." The fattening of children for the table is certainly a new idea, and we recommend the

lady to keep a wary eye on the ogre-like doctor, who has perhaps got tired of eternal celery and endive. Let her take her warnings. Let her put a leg of mutton to her trimmings, a beefsteak to her onions, and a mutton-chop into her Irish-stew. It will make her book more saleable, and her cookery more eatable; and besides, if she marries, she may then hope for marrowbones and cleavers in the evening.

[The announcement of the "Comic" for 1834 took this year, in the "Athenæum" for October, the form of a circular from the General Post Office.]

GENERAL POST OFFICE.

WHEREAS the following letter having been put into Box No. 4, Section 6, Department 8 of this office, without any address or superscription whatever :

Instead of returning the same to the authors of "Rejected Addresses" or of "Odes and Addresses to Great People," His Grace the Director-general has ordered it to be directed generally to the people of Great Britain, in the hope that some individual of the three kingdoms may lay claim to the epistle according to the letter of the law-or rather the law of the letter.

"MY DEAR SIR,

(COPY.)

"You are perfectly and nautically right. The 'Comic Annual' ought certainly to clear out in time for the trade winds to carry it through the straits of PaterIt is far better in that latitude to have a sale than to be Rowing.

noster.

"You may safely advertise that the 'Comic' will leave your dock, outward bound, on the 1st of November, and if

you should call it A, it will sound no worse to the subscribers at Lloyd's.' My literary rigging, except a few lines, is all standing, and the blockmakers have done their parts. This announcement sounds rather Dibdenish, but it will come appropriately from a street that is named after the Fleet.

You

"With regard to my novel, the shell of Tylney Hall' is completed, and the whole building in one story is expected to be printed and papered very early in December. can treat in the meantime with parties who may be disposed to occupy themselves with the premises; and a reading lease for a term of ninety-nine years will not be at all objected to by,

"My dear Sir,

"Yours very truly,

"THOMAS HOOD.

"LAKE HOUSE, Oct. 1, 1833."

1834.

[The "Comic" for this year appears to be without any dedication. The "Ode to Sir Andrew Agnew "is the only paper in this volume not reprinted in "Hood's Own."]

THE COMIC ANNUAL FOR 1834.

PREFACE.

FOR the fifth time, like the annual woodcock, I make my autumnal appearance; and, according to my habit, am to be found in the same haunt as the year before, frequenting leaves, and wood, and covers.

Since the last season I have taken many flights far and near, and with all my little power of suction have plied my bill around the springs of the humorous and the comic, which are, in the words of Bewick, "oozing rills that are

rarely frozen." In such plashy nooks the woodcock is said to plump himself up in a single night-and the sportsman who beats these pages in pursuit of mirth, must judge whether I have employed my time in laughing and growing fat, according to the proverb. Should I be received with. he same relish and welcome as that estimable bird of